The birth of the world's test tube baby heralded a new era of fertility treatment, and thirty years on 12,000 IVF babies are born every year in Britain alone.

The development of In Vitro Fertilisation, or IVF as it is commonly known, meant doctors could fertilise a woman's egg in a laboratory, before placing it in her womb to develop.

Since Doctors Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards artificially orchestrated the birth of Louise Brown, IVF has undergone a substantial amount of progress.

Along with steadily raising the rate of success in IVF treatment from their earliest ventures, scientists used the contraceptive pill to more conveniently schedule IVF cycles, making the process easier for doctors and patients.

They also perfected the technique of freezing and thawing embryos, making the technique significantly more effective.

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In 1992, researchers developed a method of injecting a single sperm cell directly into an egg, greatly increasing the chances of fertilisation for men with low sperm production.

Increasing effectiveness of the treatment has also meant doctors can implant fewer embryos into the womb – reducing the chance of multiple pregnancies.

And the latest development is a screening process which screens embryos for genetic faults, checking the baby's chromosomes against those of the parents to give it a greater chance of survival and good health.

But these advancements have gone hand in hand with criticism of IVF on both moral and clinical grounds.

Opponents of research into IVF included Enoch Powell, who in 1985 submitted a bill to Parliament which would have prohibited any further embryo research if it had been passed.

Questions have been raised over the ethics of being able to ‘screen’ embryos for potential genetic traits, either good or bad, before they are implanted – the so-called “designer baby” argument.

Some groups have criticised the treatment for allowing same-sex couples and single or unmarried parents to have children, while the Catholic Church opposes IVF because it involves “discarding” embryos.

Critics of the process cite studies that claim IVF increases the chance of birth defects – though other evidence contradicts this.

There is also criticism of the fact that more than thirty years of advancements have failed to bring the success rate of IVF above 30 per cent for women aged under 35, while for older women the chances of a live birth are even lower.

But doctors expect that a better understanding of which embryos are most likely to be successfully implanted will improve the chances of conception in the future, with the hope that pregnancy rates will rise significantly higher than 50 per cent.

Further advancements are expected to mean only one embryo is implanted at a time in virtually all cases, while efforts are also being made to make the treatment more “user-friendly”.

The formerly gruelling process, which involved a 10-day stay in hospital, has already been reduced to two blood tests and an ultrasound for most women, but the length of cycles and amount of testing required are expected to reduce as technology improves.